


Violence of the Storm

by tenshinokorin



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: M/M, bishonenink classics, no unsolicited concrit please, the infamous ffviii arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 10:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19293622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenshinokorin/pseuds/tenshinokorin
Summary: Zell lets Quetzalcoatl go. (written circa 2000)





	Violence of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Minor edits have been made to the text for clarity or grammatical errors, but otherwise this story is the same as it was when first published on ffnet and our archive in early 2000.

_The sky has fallen now the earth is dry and torn_  
_I know you're tired from the violence of the storm_  
_I love you, I love you, but you are all I know_  
_Forgive me_  
_Let the wind and ocean water wash across your hands_  
_Wash away a thousand memories_  
_Wash us all away_  
_Like sand._  
Ariel - October Project

*

"I have to let her go, Squall." Zell's voice didn't sound like his own. Maybe it was because of the thunderstorm rumbling ominously on the horizon, beyond the pale chalk cliffs of Balamb.

"That girl from the Library?" Squall shrugged as he opened the car door and tossed his beach towel inside. "Too bad. She worships you, and I don't think she minds that you aren't interested. She's actually nicer to me because of it all, I think." He slammed the back door and cocked his head at Zell. He was heavily still, like the frozen silence between the flame slithering into a firecracker tube and the bang as it goes off.

"No, not Sara." Zell leaned up against the hot side of the Balamb-issue ATV, his eyes closed against the rain scented wind that whipped up off the graying ocean. White caps ruffled out of nowhere on the benign green surface of the waves, and sand skittered fretfully around the tires. "Quetzalcoatl."

"Quetzalcoatl?" Squall repeated, puzzled. He hadn't known the thunderbird had a gender, much less that Zell would know it. Zell's eyes opened quickly, entreating.

"Unless you want her back? You gave her to me and all but-" Zell crossed his arms, warding off the sudden chill as the sun slipped under the woolly blanket of clouds. The light turned that odd grey-blue of summer storm, and fragile gold hairs stood up on Zell's tanned forearms. "She- She has to be free, Squall. She's not like the others. Well, maybe like Bahamut. Quetzalcoatl doesn't talk to me much, not like _speaking_ , anyway."

"She ...talks to you?" Squall's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. This had come over Zell suddenly, like the storm had the bright summer day.

Zell blushed under his fresh golden tan. "You probably think I'm crazy, I know. But I hear her a lot. Like, just when I'm falling asleep? I think-- I think maybe my mom might have sounded like her. Not Ma," he clarified, shaping sentences with his hands. "But my Mother, you know?"

Frankly, Squall did not. His guardian forces were a tool, like his gunblade. Yes, they were sentient creatures, and he respected that--but it had never occurred to him that they were prisoners who might want to be free. They'd never really occurred much to him at all. He had only the barest images of the ones he hadn't fought to acquire. The world blurred a second after they were summoned and he had only the impression of Shiva's smooth blue thighs, or Quetzalcoatl's tribal markings. When the world focused again his enemies were weaker and that was that until next time. He knew even less about the ones he'd drawn from others, he'd never really seen them.

"Would you mind?" Zell seemed to be pleading with him across the hood of the car, his hands palm down on the warm metal. "The Garden gave her to you, I could just unjunction her and you could have her back?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Squall retorted, distantly. "I couldn't take Quetzalcoatl from you any more than I could take your gloves or your final moves. She's been yours since Dollet. She belongs to you."

The rain began to fall, thrumming on the dusty hood and making small oases of sleek green enamel appear.

"That's the problem, " Zell murmured. "She shouldn't."

Squall sighed, ready to just tell Zell to get in the car so they wouldn't get drenched. But something made him stop, looking at Zell with the thunderstorm racing over the tossing waves behind him. The tattoo with its black lightning lines was illuminated briefly as the sky rumbled discontent, reminding Squall of the rapid swoop of Quetzalcoatl's wings before it--she--melted from his sight. For a moment he wondered what it would be like to be a GF, what it would be like if Zell were one, imprisoned in the mind of an intimate stranger, gnawing away memories to make a place for his wings. Never knowing what pain the next summons might bring, dying if his host were to die, slowly fading within the boundaries of an empty body...

"Squall?" Zell hopped over the hood to stand next to him, touching his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Let her go," Squall said roughly, still shaken by the image of Zell curled someplace small and dark inside of his mind, as if the martial artist was junctioned to Squall himself and Squall, greedy for the power and company, refused to unchain him. "Do you even know how?"

Zell's gold eyebrows lowered uneasily. The soft patter of rain began to come faster; Zell pushed back his hair with a wet hand. The ocean surface was wrinkled by the impending downpour. "No," Zell admitted finally, but his eyes twitched to the sky. "I don't think anyone ever has let one go. But I'm going to try. " Rain beaded in jewels on the armored backs of his gloves as he stripped them off.

_It could kill you,_ Squall thought, but he nodded and tucked the gloves into his back pocket. Even though the wind was now gleefully wild, they both seemed to have stopped noticing it.

Zell walked slowly to the edge of the beach, waves throwing themselves furiously against the sand as if to tear the beach away from the high shoulder of the coast. Zell tossed his shorts to one side, kicking off his sandals, and waded into the violent surf with only his empty hands to defend him.

Squall could only watch from the relative safety of the cliffs, one hand gripping the car side mirror so hard that the housing threatened to break. He knew Zell was right, but it was taking all his strength not to rush after him and pull him back from the devouring waves. Zell's slim bare body was a gold streak in a pewter wash of sky and storm, still for a moment as the water rushed up around his chest and then retreated to his calves.

Squall and the storm held their breath.

Then Zell summoned.

The pause was minuscule; Quetzalcoatl knew her master too well to tarry in coming to him. For once though, Zell's own body did not vanish to accommodate hers, and open armed he screamed her name. The water trembled, the next incoming wave switched direction and rolled back towards the ocean as some being ripped the space below it.

Quetzalcoatl erupted out of the sea, leaving Zell behind as the waves rushed around him, drenching him even more than the sudden deluge of rain. His body looked terribly small next to the thunderbird's massive wingspan, the water sluicing off the great golden pinions. Zell's body arched in a way that was too familiar to Squall, he'd held that yielding shape in his arms and they'd moved in it together. But Zell's cry of grief or pleasure was lost in the thunder that boomed off the cliffs and the wind that turned the leaves of the forest inside out. It was Quezacotl he heard, a cry skirling above the pathetic storm and piercing the sky, her wings raining lighting around Zell and sparking as they flashed over the water. For a moment she paused, her glorious plumage stilled as she turned to acknowledge the one who had freed her. Her wings arched back like a canopy, and with a final cry she plunged into the abyss of air above her. The clouds tore apart to let her pass, and Zell went to his knees in the receding tide.

The rain had stopped.

Squall didn't know if it was rain or tears that stung his eyes, but either way it was ignored as instinct propelled him into the storm-littered water to haul a spluttering Zell out by the armpits. Zell kicked protest, grumbling about seaweed up his ass, but dropped to the damp sand the moment Squall released him. He lay quietly on his back for a long time, watching the clouds departing as swiftly as they had come. Squall had no words; he was short of them on a usual basis and now, with that sharp encounter still ringing in his ears, he was completely empty of things to say.

"Beautiful, wasn't she?" Zell was smiling at the sky, aware of Squall's careful gaze, as if he was expecting Zell to suddenly laugh like a maniac or crumple quietly in a ball and weep. "I'd never really seen her before."

"Did she tell you anything?" Squall was remembering that glance back, the way Zell had spoken something unclear over the wind.

"Yeah." Zell said, still giving the torn bits of remaining cloud a smile as if he shared a secret with them. "She did."

Squall waited, but Zell did not seem inclined to divulge more information, instead getting to his feet and looking around for his shorts.

"Zell." Squall reached out to touch the smooth sand-glittered surface of Zell's back, but hesitated. He'd seen magic and knew it and had tasted it in his mouth, but this was something rich and strange and beyond him. His voice was strained. "Zell, what is that?"

"What is what?" Zell craned his neck to see between his shoulder blades. "A jellyfish get me or something?"

Squall didn't answer, but took Zell by the elbow and led him back to the parked vehicle, turning him so he could see his back reflected in the tinted window. Zell blinked, thinking at first what he saw was a distortion on the glass, but then his eyes widened in surprise.

Stretched between the points of Zell's shoulder blades burned an image of glorious gold and saffron, detailed with a black so velvety it did not seem possible. A magnificent thunderbird spread her protective wings up to cradle the back of Zell's neck, white-silver threads of electricity hovering around her. Neither Squall nor Zell could recall anything so utterly perfect.

"Is it a present, or a brand?" Squall asked carefully, as Zell reached behind him to trace his fingers over the tattoo. 

"It doesn't hurt." 

They both knew that Zell should be tender for at least a few days after getting such a tattoo by conventional means. But no ordinary yellow dye could show up in such smooth brightness on human skin, and the lightning seemed to flicker with the barest motion of his body.

"I think it's a present." Zell said at last, and missed Squall's exhalation in relief. "She said something about a gift for one given-- I still don't understand most of it but maybe part of it was this." He smiled slowly, and then grinned at Squall as he flexed at his reflection. "Damn, it's pretty awesome though, isn't it? I was thinking about getting a new one." An idea struck him. "Hey maybe if you released Bahamut he'd-"

Squall blew at his bangs in irritation, forgetting his anxiety of the past hour. "Like hell. I'd look ridiculous. Now get in and let's get back before Cid sends a search party out for us."

"All right, all right." Once in the car Zell was himself again, chattering at Squall for the first few minutes of the trip back. Exhaustion took over swiftly and he drifted off in the middle of one of his sentences, leaning his head on Squall's shoulder. Squall glanced down at him every now and then, just to make sure he was still there, junctioned to his side.

Squall wasn't very good at letting things go.

Somewhere beyond them and in the haze of Zell's dreaming, Quetzalcoatl lifted her wings over the dark path of the storm, gold from her wings streaming like sunlight through the rack of clouds. And over the peal of thunder Zell could hear her, flying forever and no more distant than the next spear of lightning.

**Author's Note:**

> Zell releasing his GF is one of the most well-known moments of bishonenink's so-called "Infamous Final Fantasy VIII Arc" (or at least, one of the few I'm still willing to own up to ^^;;; ). This is still the story closest to my heart from that time. With two decades of distance and practice I can see how raw my writing was--I was still in college at the time, after all. But the heart of it--and the heart of Zell himself--is as true as ever.


End file.
